SAFEGUARDING

David Livingstone Academy is committed to ensuring the welfare and safety of all our children in school. We believe that pupils have a right to learn in a supportive, caring and safe environment which includes the right to protection from all types of abuse; where staff are vigilant for signs of any pupil in distress and are confident about applying the/our safeguarding processes to avert and alleviate any such problems.

Safeguarding is about ensuring that everyone is safe from harm – safe from bullying, safe from people who could abuse, safe from discrimination or harassment – and that we all feel safe in our environment.​

Sometimes we may need to share information and work in partnership with other agencies when there are concerns about a child’s welfare. We will ensure that our concerns about our pupils are discussed with his/her parents/carers first unless we have reason to believe that such a move would be contrary to the child’s welfare.

If you are ever concerned about the safety or well‐being of someone at our school, please talk to one of the school’s Designated Safeguarding Officers.

PREVENT STRATEGY

As part of David Livingstone Academy’s commitment to safeguarding and child protection, we fully support the government’s Prevent Strategy. As part of our annual Safeguarding trainings, we ensure that members of our team are aware of governmental priorities.

What is the Prevent Strategy?

The Prevent strategy is a government strategy designed to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. As described in official documents published by Her Majesty’s Government, the Prevent Strategy:

responds to the ideological challenge we face from terrorism and aspects of extremism, and the threat we face from those who promote these views

provides practical help to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism and ensure they are given appropriate advice and support

works with a wide range of sectors (including education, criminal justice, faith, charities, online and health)

If you are concerned that a member of staff, a Governor or potential Governor may have links to extremism or that child might be at risk of extremism, or if you have any other concern about extremism at David Livingstone Academy, please contact the Department for Education’s helpline on counter.extremism@education.gsi.gov.uk or 020 7340 7264. Parents/carers can also find some more information on the Educate Against Hate website by the DfE

E-Safety

E-Safety is an important part of keeping children safe at DLA . We have extensive security measures in place in school, which are monitored both internally and externally, to help safeguard pupils from potential dangers or unsuitable material. Any e-Safety incidents are recorded and managed in accordance with our E-Safety Policy. E-Safety is taught to all pupils explaining and demonstrating how to stay safe and behave appropriately online.

The best way to help your child to be safe when using the internet is to talk to them and make sure they understand a few simple rules which can be found in our Parent/Carer E-Safety Sheet. Below you can find links to our E-Safety leaflet, our school rules for responsible ICT use and a large variety of links to some useful websites. Also, we have now added printable guides for keeping your child safe when using smartphones, tablets, X-Box etc.

We can only be successful in keeping children safe online if we work with parents to ensure the e-Safety message is consistent. It is important that parents speak to their children about how they can keep safe and behave appropriately online. It’s essential to be realistic- banning the internet or technology will not work and it often makes a child less likely to report a problem. Education around safe use is therefore essential. Please note that no search engine is ever 100% safe but below provides some links to some “safer” search engines:

CEOP (The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre) delivers a multi-agency service dedicated to tackling the abuse and exploitation of children in the real and ‘e’ world. Often it is referred to as an online 999. By clicking on the button, young people and parents can get advice on a range of issues such as viruses, hacking and dealing with bullying online.